Spotlight on outer space at India's fashion weeks
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Aliens and astronauts loomed large over two of India's premier fashion shows just days before the country launches an unmanned mission to the moon.
Designer Prashant Verma was excited that his futuristic space-age collection was showcased on Sunday, ahead of the Wednesday launch of Chandrayaan-1, a spacecraft built by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
But he wasn't really worried that dresses made to resemble space suits and what looked like robotic arms might be difficult to carry off.
"Wearability is in the eye of the beholder," Verma said after his spring and summer collection for 2009 featured at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week in New Delhi.
The young designer turned out his models in dresses with planet prints decorated with Swarovski crystals.
Verma's models, many sporting electric wires and crystals on their hands, walked the ramp as a recorded speech of former U.S. president John F. Kennedy, champion of the U.S. space effort, played in the background.
At the five-day Delhi Fashion Week, running concurrently a few km (miles) away, designer duo Hemant Sagar and Didier Lecoanet pulled off a Martian stunt.
A boy covered in green body paint shuffled down the runway after models in eye masks had walked past in garments that seemed as if they had been stapled together.
"We thought it best to have a look at something outside of what's going on in the world right now," Sagar told reporters.
The collection featured a mix of fluorescent dresses with leggings and skirts in nylon and chiffon with belt-like straps.
Both shows used a rocket launch countdown to propel the models onto the runway.
(Editing by David Fox)
